System of a Down’s Shavo Odadjian Has Considered Hiring Band Psychiatrist

Other than wondering when Tool's new album will come out, it seems the next biggest question on the minds of metal fans is if System of a Down will ever put out a follow-up to 2005's Mezmerize and Hypnotize albums. The band's members have repeatedly confirmed there's no shortage of material; the problem (or at least one of the problems) is that they just can't agree on a direction. This dysfunction has led bassist Shavo Odadjian to consider hiring a band psychiatrist.

The idea of a band psychiatrist is not uncommon: in Metallica's Some Kind of Monster documentary, they hired performance enhancement coach Phil Towle, for example. This idea was presented on The Kevin & Bean Show on KROQ when Odadjian was a guest on the radio program. “I’ve had that conversation," the guitarist admitted (transcription via The PRP). "That would be cool, like maybe someone has to sit in the middle and be like, ‘This is what it means,’ and ‘This is what he means.’ But it’s not like someone has done something," he continued. "There’s no, like, where he could be ‘Oh he did this for that reason,'" expressed Odadjian, highlighting the band members are not at odds with each other like Metallica's James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich infamously were.

Earlier in the conversation, Odadjian explained there's no animosity in the band. "We still love each other. There’s nothing… No one’s done anything wrong," he said, going on, "No one’s angry, it’s not like someone’s done something to someone and they can’t take it back. Nothing like that’s occurred. I think it’s just an artistic thing.”

Talking about new material, Odadjian said, "We have material for like the last 10-12 years. We all write. So, I personally have a lot, Daron [Malakian] has a lot, I know Serj [Tankian has] got a lot, but I don’t know… I don’t know what’s going on."